


Attack On Titan: Winds Rising

by Kymlekl



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Ending, Bad Decisions, Blood and Gore, Canon Divergence, Canon Related, Character Death, Complicated Relationships, Crimes & Criminals, Dubious Morality, Dubious Science, Flash Forward, Flashbacks, Friendship, Great Titan War, Growing Up, Inappropriate Humor, Manga & Anime, Misunderstandings, Multi, Original Character(s), POV Alternating, Swearing, Tags May Change, Trauma, Violence, Visions, more War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-14 10:08:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20190547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kymlekl/pseuds/Kymlekl
Summary: "The first one, they called it the “Grim Reminder” against the merry background of privileged indifference that had made everyone who’d been looking for some answers look like a bubbling idiot, stealing taxes and saving money on their funeral as they hardly involved any coffins.That, Levi can somewhat understand.Then there had been the other one, which didn’t really serve much reminding-purpose, for it was clear enough that they were always a good mile behind their happenings.A mile, a century, whatever.That sure makes him mad, but, still, Levi can try to understand.But this?! What exactly is he supposed to remember now?! That they’re late? Again—Always, no matter what?!"An alternative take on what happens after the end of season 3/chapter 90. It tries to develop some plot while focusing on the different consequences of what has happened so far.It kind of starts with a rescue mission, failed attempts at keeping order within the Walls, questionable alliances being made, a major attack in Sina, and Eren losing his shit.A bit of a whodunit, but also—mainly— a "where-can-we-go-from-here".And that's where things get even worse.





	1. *

**Author's Note:**

> Sup! Just someone's first fanfic, which started a ridiculous amount of time ago as a semi-personal way to explore how people are(not?) going to crumble after RtS/Misery Arc, and then turned into… A monster?
> 
> It’s not supposed to try to fix anything. It’s just a way to play with the story, I guess.  
If you spend any amount of time reading it, I hope you’ll find it entertaining.  
I am very new to writing fiction, so criticism's appreciated.  
My only beta reader is stupid computer's (highly opinionated) autocorrect. I hope that doesn't result in disastrous consequences.
> 
> SPOILER WARNING:  
Originally, this was supposed to cover a few years after the events of ch. 90, so I used information contained in the manga to try to come up with something that would still make (some?) sense.  
If you haven't read the manga this might seem weird, but if you have, you might understand how that might spoil things for those who know nothing about where the real story's going.
> 
> SO:
> 
> ** I'll be writing at the beginning of every chapter that contains such spoilers which manga chapters are covered.  
This way it can be up to you to skip the chapter, skip the work entirely, or not give a damn and go on with it anyway. **
> 
> When no manga chapter is specified, it means you can take ch 90/the end of season 3 as the starting assumption.
> 
> If you've read up to ch. 105, you're almost completely settled (there might be slight references that cover up to ch.114, but I'll warn you if that's the case). After ch.105 there are pretty big canon deviations.
> 
> Most similar plot points/direct references are fairly vague, and develop in different ways from canon, but if you're the kind of person who doesn't even dwell into theories to enjoy a complete sense of surprise, I don't want to accidentally ruin your plans.  
I hope this helps.
> 
> Peace!

OUT OF TIME

*

—Tick—

The boy’s legs push through the tall blades of grass.  
The thick mass of black hair falls over his eyes, his lips parted to allow more air in.  
The worn cape swings feebly as he moves—impossible to say if what’s attacking the interwoven wings is old blood, mud, or both.

There is an uncomfortable stillness all around.  
  
Behind a veil of clouds, the sun barely shines through, mostly tainting its surroundings with a sick yellow without actually giving off much light.

No bird flies through the sky.  
No animal, nor insect crawls on the earth.  
Devoid of life, the world itself looks dusted, as if a thin, grey veil had covered everything—the rocks, the leaves on the trees, the water of the streams, the air itself—waiting for someone, something, anything.  
  
Anything… Except for the boy, who moves, who lives through the dusted world where nothing else moves, nothing else lives.  
  
He mutters words under his breath: the only sound for miles and miles.

The dust does lift, and shifts, and flows around as he moves through it, but it’s but a fickle sign of life: not long after he’s passed, back it falls, again it floats, and spreads until it evens.

  
The boy clicks his tongue— a sound both of effort and frustration.

_Where are you?!_

***

—Tock—

_Say, Eren…._

Eren opens up his eyes, and lets his fingers unleash his dark hair from their grasp.

He looks around, his legs seemingly crossed on nothingness, on pure whiteness.

_You still think it’s worth it, after all?_

An assault of broken images—Faded fragments, lost memories too withered to see.

_All this pain, all this struggling…_

But Eren feels them. He feels, somewhere inside him, what was to be known, what was to be remembered.

The lost pleads, the lost lives, the dreams of those who are—now—nothing but howling wind and dust—they all come at him, like horses galloping into battle.

_Take it away…_

Eren tries to protect his face, tries to look away from the painful bursts of light and colours.

But still they hit him.

Again and again, his nostrils are filled with pungent scents, and in his ears echo the voices.

_  
Yes, Eren..._

  
And Eren sees a plain of corpses.

_Will you..._

_Won’t you…_

And Eren sees a plain of sand, and the wind twirling and making towers that soon crumble.

_Please_

And Eren sees a needle digging into an arm.

A child crying.

A whole crowd praying.

_ Can you take it all away?_

“Who are you?!” Eren hears himself scream in his head.  
He tries to stand, and look around, and find the source of the slightly louder voice, and keep his mind focused on the white space, away from the shooting memories.

_Take it all away…_

“I… I can’t…”

Behind him, for a moment, a little girl—quickly gone, but her shadow stays behind.  


_Say, Eren…_

Eren frowns. Is it the shadow? 

He extends a hand...

_…Take it away…_

He shouts as more images shoot through his mind, and the smaller voices fight with one another to be heard.

_Please, Eren…_

_ Please..._

“I CAN’T DO ANYTHING!” He tries closing his eyes, he tries making it disappear...

_Just take it all away…_

Suddenly, darkness.

***

—Tick—

The room is dark. The humidity over the walls shimmers in the few spots where the iceburst torch hits it with its light.  
Sitting on the floor against a wall, Hange’s face is crossed by long, thin shadows. They can see the outline of Salvatus’ thick figure, but they don’t actually mind not seeing how exactly he’s looking at them.  
  
“Really?” There’s a vaguely mocking disinterest in Hange’s voice, but the man beyond the bars doesn’t care for their suspicion nor their mockery.  
  
He looks pensively ahead for a bit before replying. “That’s what he seemed to think,” he shrugs, shutting a leather folder filled with papers.   
  
Hange takes their head in their hand, their lips mimicking a rapid flow of reasoning.  
  
On a second thought, Salvatus frowns, then looks up, excited. “You disagree?!” _Too eager_. “Ahem… Perhaps you want to offer a different opinion.”  
  
“About what?”  
  
“How it_ started_ !” He snaps, swinging the folder in the air.  
  
Hange looks at him briefly, “Why do you keep asking that?” the mockery is now unmistakable. There’s also a vague accusation, somewhere. “You really think it makes a difference?”  
  
“It might make it in terms of your culpability in this, Zoë.”  
  
Hange startles. “Who’s the new Commander?” More than a question: a demand.  
But Salvatus is not there to satisfy Hange’s demands—his expression a further confirmation of this already evident fact. So Hange lowers their eye to the ground. “Of course.”  
  
Salvatus doesn't avert his eyes from them, but he draws a long, deep breath.  
He steps towards the cell, his tone softer now. “If you have a different opinion, we’d all be happy to hear it.”  
  
“No, you won’t.” Hange pushes against the wall until they stand—with evident difficulty. “You could go back to the beginning of the world and fix all its problems, nothing will assure you that you won’t be in even worse shit now.” They falter towards the edge of the cell, and run a hand over the bars, as if to make sure they are actually there, and their consistency hasn’t changed. There are cuts and bruises on their face, bandages over their shoulder and around their stomach.  
“How did this begin… How can I know?” Hange’s bright eye points right into Salvatus’ tensed face as they add, in a complicit tone, “You may want to look into what everyone keeps saying.”  
  
A beam of hope?! He would take _anything_ right now. “What’s that?” his thick fingers wrap around one of the bars in excitement.  
  
Hange’s fingers also wrap around the bar, but there’s cold challenge in their eyes. “That a little girl made the wrong kind of deal and doomed the world to an endless struggle.”

As he takes in the statement, his eyes widen... To promptly narrow, as he frowns, having reached its implications. “If you think that I—”, he shouts. “I am not—I am really not—”

“Guess if it _were_ you, you _could_ fix it, couldn’t you?”

Salvatus’ eyes nearly pop out of his sockets. “You’ve got some fucking nerve to speak to me like this after what happened here today!!!” Spit leaves his mouth as he shouts. He beats on the bars, making them vibrate.  
But that’s not why Hange recoils, why they suddenly look at their feet with utter sadness.

“I had warned you, hadn’t I?!” he goes on, “You… Freaks! You violent—”

“I am sorry…”

Salvatus’ mouth opens and shuts in wonderment—  
  
“I don’t need apologies!!!” The vein on his neck reaches worrying proportions. “What I need is for people to _stop dying_!!!”

“That’s what we also—”

“NO!” A shout strong enough to make Hange feel their brain shaking in their skull,“No, and no, no, no, no, no!”  
Purple with increased blood pressure, face covered in sweat, Salvatus seems to be brought to a halt more by physiological necessity than a conscious desire to do so.  
“Shit,” he concludes, more quietly, stepping away from the bars.

They both stay silent for a while—Hange focusing on their heartbeat resuming normal speed in their chest; Salvatus using one of his hairy arms to roughly dry the sweat on his face.

"That’s… Fine. It’s been—what—ten hours? Fifteen?” Hange’s lips turn into a smile that holds some sympathy, but no joy. “I didn’t know it either… What it means, what it’s like to be the one holding the reins.” They touch the bandages over their stomach pensively. “I thought it’d be simple enough as long as the aim was to keep people alive.”

Hange has spoken with kindness, but Salvatus’ face shows nothing but anger and resentment.  
  
“So you’re the victims in all of this, is that what you’re saying?” He makes a disgusted grunt, and turns around, and opens up the iron door to step outside the room.

Hange leaps towards the bars, one urgent thought prevailing on everything else, “Have you found him, though?!”

Salvatus stands before the exit for a moment, hand firm on the door handle.  
He turns around—just enough to make a show of the cold smile of courtesy on his face. “Thank you for your assistance,Zoë. We’ll let you know if there’s anything else.”

Hange blinks furiously, their mouth muttering something as they mentally fight to assert which begging formula takes precedence. But Salvatus cuts them short before they even begin to speak. “I’m sure… You’d still love to help us.” His smile widens. “You know, _for humanity’s sake_.”

Flames of disdain and anger light up Hange’s eyes. “I’m _always_ on the side of humanity,” their knuckles turn white from the pressure applied to the bars. “Even now that it seems to have lost meaning.”

“Ah…” he nods. “Isn’t that the sort of naivety that brings one to come to terms with the devil?”  
He walks on and slams the door behind him before Hange can set off on a new, long string of imprecations.  
  
They grab the bars, maddened by anger, “You want that last word so bad you can fucking keep it!” They scream, and then scream some more, shaking the bars.  
But not a sound comes from outside, so Hange lets their head drop against the bars, and a nervous, tired, sad tremor shake their body.  
  
“Fucking… PISS!” They turn around, and slide against the bars, face caught in their hands. “We don’t have time for this… We don’t— We don’t…”  
But it isn’t until they lose footing, and slide too quickly against the bars, falling heavily on the floor, that Hange gapes—shocked, hurt, lost— and finally allows themselves to cry.

“Levi… Guys…” a sob, “Be safe.”

***

—Tock—

On his knees, in the dirt, alone.

Ex-humanity’s-strongest-soldier’s right hand is tightened around a soaked, stained bandage that moves feebly, tensed as if attached to something far on the right. His other hand clasps the grass before him, rips it, tortures it . His hair dribbles water on his face, bouncing off the blades of grass, spotting the soil.

Grinned teeth—hissing, spitting, whimpering.

He kicks back his sobs towards a darker pit inside of him, each bursting somewhere in his core, turning into convulsive gagging.

  
The sky, _that day_: one ugly, uneven clog of dark clouds, full and bruised. And yet the rain hesitates to fall, and the air is filled by deep, recurrent growls.

Is that where it began? The sky grumbling with cystitis, cold sweat running down his forehead, the way he caught the old hag cry…

  
Again, _again_.  
The meeting room—that day: a space of gravity so powerful, everything falls back into it. His mind, the silence, their fears, their hopes—and then that tear, and everything that followed.

Mr Pig-In-Shitty-Suspenders falls heavily on the chair, the boy leans awkwardly over the fainted girl, but Hange…  
_Fuck.  
_Hange’s hand clutches with pain the space above the heart, and as an echo Levi’s own heart skips a beat in terror, and as a consequence he feels his own guts twisting, his asshole shrinking up inside him.

That ought to be the sign ofthe beginning of this shit.

  
That day, outside— way, way out— the birds fly challenging the higher winds. Some timid raindrops slide over their feathers.  
The birds don’t mind the darkness ahead of them. They do not mind the Walls as they glide over them, surpass them. There are winds strong enough to embarrass them, to swerve them in the air like toys tied to a string—but not today.  
Today, they’ll stop in due time, without fretting. After all, a wing is something made to master the winds, and knows exactly how to meet the air.

Men, they have clumsier wings. Hidden in their hearts, fighting compromise, and bound to fleshy, awkward limbs that seek cover against the rising wind.   
Some of these men—true—they have flashier wings. Painted over capes, machine-bound, freedom-bound—or so they say, so they promise, even as they fall, even as they die.  
Some others still—it is worth noting—are bound to monsters.

But that is not what the people in Orrud want to hear, as the morning flows, and the clocks tick.  
Signs are turned in the shops to welcome customers. Earlier birds already well into the day’s business make trade, give change, burgle. In the streets there’s the giggling of children’s games, and coloured textiles, a woman helping her old mother, someone feeding a stray dog, a man’s fingers cutting through a girl’s hair as she runs away, a green unicorn shining on his uniform.

One could look at all this and do not know the void that lives between them.  
One could look at this and think there has not been the day the Survey Corps have sealed a Wall, and opened a much wider, darker breech.   
  
Their future: extinction. Their past: forgotten. And in between, a present as lively and impotent as a single flap of wings in the ever raging winds of time.

That was the truth that filled every void, for it itself was a void, and it was hungry, and it spread its boundless mouth between every fool’s smile, every walking step, every moment in which a gesture turned into a new one.   
But the void is not a thing made for the living. They must still wake up, and meet the world—however shrunk— and get about their business. And open shops, and feed their dogs, pat their children on their heads, give the change, lean on the stick, catch some running girl before she’s gone, cry. 

Except, _this day_ is different.

This day, the void will eat them.

This day, between a collection of accomplished tiny gestures, an awful sound—new, unheard, unthinkable—breaks the system, breaks the air, and kills.

Outside, on the patch of grass, Levi throws up, and the tears follow.

  
Inside the meeting room, Levi beats his eyelids, and turns his shocked gaze to the window, away from the anguished, panicked chattering around him.  
He spies the indifferent birds moving on.

A flap of wings. 

  
The Survey Corps’s Head Quarters bursts with a noise that is both the breaking of a lightning and the roar of thunder. A sound of death that breaks the windows and turns them into gnarling mouths with tongues of fire. 

The lucky didn’t have the time to think before they were already dead.

But now the void has presence. And it screams.  
  
  
Hange had said, had known: _Prepare, prepare, we must prepare_.   
But even so...  
What good was it all now?

  
On the grass, Levi tries to catch his breath, constrain his thoughts, and fails.

He beats his fist against the ground, his face collapsed and spitting against the soil, trying to muffle broken whimpers.  
He can feel a boy, of twelve or so, standing right before him.  
He can feel his own hand stretched, but no one there to touch.  
  
A sound coming from behind him prompts Levi to open up his eyes.

But Levi’s in a position, now, where memories are more vivid than reality.  
Where memories are the only thing he sees.

His head now up, the sun shines uselessly on Levi’s blind, discoloured eyes.


	2. PART I: DOLDRUMS-- Ch I: Slide

“Alright, we’re entering Cave 6, section D, and it’s… What?” Garrison’s Operation Leader Taji Brümer turns around, the head-torch slightly colouring her companions’ faces with a pale blue .  
  
“Half past two,” a strong man says, turning towards a young, blonde boy who promptly writes the information down in a notebook.  
  
“Right!” The Operation Leader stares with enthusiasm at a narrow, dark corridor opening up before her. “Air’s typically dump, everything’s typically quiet and dark, and I’m in the typical need for a massage.” She stretches her back to emphasise her point, before quickly turning towards the boy. “Don’t actually write that.”  
  
A grunt comes from behind the other four members of the team.  
“Cave 6, and at least three more to go.” Leaning against a wall, a girl with dark, curly hair and dusty glasses sounds like she’s about to cry.  
  
All but the young boy and the Operation Leader turn around in palpable annoyance, “Oh, c’mon, Lina!”  
  
Taji smiles, approaching her, “The less time we spend outside complaining, the quicker we finish, champ.”  
  
But Lina doesn’t give up, “Why aren’t the Corps here?”  
A general chuckle.  
“You really wanna baby-sit a bunch of suicidal kids down there?” A lean guy with a face filled with freckles says, and scoffs.  
  
And immediately an argument ensues.

Taji lifts her eyes to the low, dark ceiling. The rock here doesn’t emanate the usual, precious light of the iceburst stone, but it wouldn’t be the first time if they found some reserve lower in the ground. Taji doubts the Corps would make a mess of the operation. It’s not like the Garrison is particularly used to go on speleological expeditions, but she—and the other volunteers in general—welcomed the mysterious reasons that made people resentful towards the recent multitude of projects promoted by the Survey Corps.  
Now, how could anyone be that mad at someone like Commander Zoe is a bit beyond Taji’s grasp, but still…  
She sighs, and smiles. At least this is more like an adventure!

“Alright, that’s enough hanging around,” Taji says, interrupting her team's argument as Vince—the freckled guy—is just about to grab Lina by the hair.“ You know the drill. Map the area out. Collect samples. Verify solidity of structure.” She fixes the icerburst head-light wrapped around her head. “Alright, let’s go!”

___________

Six little beams of light move in line through the darkness.

They walk, they crawl, they climb down in nearly complete silence—with Lina occasionally muttering complaints, and the others pointing out measurements, orientation points, remarks and notes for the mission report.

They finally reach a wider area, lightened up by iceburst chunks glowing from one side, and proceed extracting the most accessible pieces and placing them in safety containers. Then they work on measuring pressure, gather further information for the maps, and record anything that might enlighten them at some point on how exactly these odd corridors were created.  
Sure, they’ve all heard some rumours about the power of the Founder having something to do with it, but still—  
  
“Yuck…” Vince says, withdrawing a gloved finger from a section of the wall. “There’s something sticky on this bit.”  
  
Taji reaches him, the instruments to take a sample ready in her hand as she inspects the wall.“Nat!” she calls, but the blonde boy is actually already energetically writing down on his notebook.  
  
“Alright!” Taji’s eyes shine as she triumphantly agitates the content in the phial, “This is new, isn’t it?”  
  
“Alright, alright—_Nothing_’s alright,” Lina drops the pick and cleans up her lenses, tired and frustrated. “I miss working on the Walls. Can’t believe I confused ‘relaxing’ with ‘boring’”. She takes a different pick and pries the flat surface on her section of the wall some more.  
  
Taji smirks, elbowing her, “Sure, those very relaxing fake alarms shenanigans… And accidents…”  
  
“And sunburns,” Yör, the stronger man suggests.  
  
“And plastering!” Adds a woman from behind what looks like a rough column.  
  
“Shut up!” Lina glares around. “This is hollow.”

Five heads lean over Lina’s to contemplate the wall.

“Alright, Nat!”Taji rubs her hands together, “Take it down with a mighty punch.”  
  
Nat stares at her completely terrified.  
  
Taji slams her own face with a hand.  
  
Lina sighs, carefully tasting the wall with her pick, “On it.”  
  
“Watch out, Frizzy. You keep tickling it like that, it might laugh at you,” Vince says, approaching, pick in a hand.  
  
“It’s a delicate business!”  
  
“Right…”  
  
Taji takes Nat to the side, “You know, you don’t need to look so scared every time we talk to—”  
  
They’re invested by a cloud of dust and the loud noise of rock crumbling. A sound that echoes very ominously all around and makes the ground shake under their feet.

“Dude, too much!” Taji screams, trying to quickly assess the damage. Somehow the rock has given way, opening up an elongated hole in the wall.  
  
“Idiot!” Lina echoes, pushing Vince aside.

Taji’s eyes widen with fear. She barely manages to grab Lina’s jacket and throw her against the opposite wall before part of the ground falls, opening up a pit at the base of the wall.  
The ceiling shakes and some debris fall. They all scream against the noise, while the air is darkened by the thick dust.

  
Six people lay curled up like children for a few long moments.  
  
Fighting against a fit of cough, Taji tries to look around and make sure her team’s safe. “Nat?” she cries.  
A thin hand rises from behind some smaller rocks.  
Her sigh of relief is promptly covered by her team’s excited muttering.  
  
“I-is that a…”  
  
Taji looks behind her, and beats her eyelids, “Door?”  
  
Lina grunts. “More like an arch.”  
  
Nat frantically writes things down.  
  
“So, we call it quits?” Lina stands up, and stares disheartened at her ruined glasses, “Let little Nat do a sketch, leave it and move on?”  
  
The other girl leans forward, “Is that… Writing? On top of the thing?”

They all squint and make a cautious step forward, except for Lina, who’s quite happy to glance at the vague incisions with suspicion from the safety of the hard rock behind her back.  
  
Taji, unhappy with a superficial squinting, crawls towards the soft edge where the ground collapsed.  
  
Lina startles, “What the hell are you doing?!”

Taji continues, leaning over the edge to bring her face closer to the signs over the arch. “Can’t make out anything,” she moves her head from one side to the other, undecided. “Maybe it’s just… Decoration?”

Lina crosses her arms, “Maybe that’s nothing at all.”

Taji peeks into the hole,“Pass me another torch, will you?”

They move forward, except for Lina, and Yör, who’d rather keep his weight away from the delicate spot.

“If she falls, she stays there, I’m telling you.” Lina says, but Taji screams, excited.

“Stairs!” her head comes out from the hole, and she gestures enthusiastically to motion the others to see for themselves. “This thing’s got fucking stairs!”

“You’re making it up!” Lina looks at Yör for support, and is promptly let down by the way he looks at the others with heartbreaking longing. She crosses her arms again, “Can we just… Write it all down and come back with a bigger team or something?”

Taji smirks, “What, you suddenly claustrophobic?”

“The air _smells_ down here.”

They all stare at her for a few, quiet seconds.

“Get a rope,” Taji says.

***

Hange is rushing down the street, muttering between their teeth words that were actually only meant to be loud thinking. Their voice is unnaturally high-pitched—more like a caricature. “Capture the titans… Go outside the Walls… Check the tests’ results…”  
Their hands try to move through a clumsy fan of papers that keeps dismembering. The wind isn’t helping, and keeps pushing pages filled with graphs and formulas away from their fingers.  
It’s one of the many reasons why Hange’s about to have a nervous breakdown.

“Talk to the boy… Prepare the codes… Talk to distributors…”

Another reason being, they are extremely late for a meeting.

Hange looks around, frantically, trying to make sure they haven’t missed the right turn.  
It’d be much easier to avoid these alternative itineraries through Orvud’s narrow, secondary streets, wrapping around each other like a tight digestive system, but if they did, and picked the wider, simpler streets, there would be people there. Civilians, and—for the love of science— _journalists_…  
They pause. Lack of sleep makes their dark eye sunken, their reactions slower, and their mind travel.  
Maybe,_ even worse_…  
The recruits, halting their business to stare at them, some itching with heartbreaking admiration, others with disquieting, rising anger—

No. No time for _that_. Not now.

They resume walking, glancing intermittently at the papers, the street ahead, and the narrower ones opening on the sides.  
They stare at something on the paper, puzzled. “No, no… This goes the other—“ Another sheet falls out of the bunch… To land into a puddle.  
Hange clutches their hands around the papers and lets out a scream.

“Commander?”

“Yes!” 

Wait… _No._  
A man with a notebook stares at Hange with eyes full of breaking-news’ expectations.

Hange shrieks, guilt stamped all over their face, “ No! Not _now_, please.” They raise a hand in begging gesture, recoiling, trying to find an alley in which they could easily disappear.

But the man is reached by a couple of colleagues, and the way they move towards Hange is a clear sign of their collective ‘Yes now’.

“I’m late!” Hange pleads, then turns away and starts to run.

  
It doesn’t really serve much purpose: they don’t squeeze pompous administrative buildings in small alleys, or in secret venues that people might just happen to ignore.  
And even if they did, those journalists would surely find a way in there.  
Hange screams inside their head while the amount of people hanging around them increases in size and boldness.

“Commander Hange Zoë, do you want to make a statement?”

_Do I look like I want to make a statement?!_

“How are the works in the Underground progressing?”

“Would you say the locals are currently at risk?”

“What do you say about the criticisms on the Survey Corps’ handling of the Garrison’s explorations?”

“Has the Wall Maria’s Rehabilitation Program been abandoned?!”

Fighting against one another to get their questions heard, the reporters seem deaf to Hange’s muffled whining of exasperation.

Months ago, Hange’s head would have turned from one reporter to the other, confused, surprised, eager to help and to inform.  
Today, Hange lowers that same head, and tries to push past them as politely as possible, holding the papers tight to their chest as if they were a fragile creature.

They only sprint as the gate approaches, and with them a crowd of people that has decisively been growing, and that today accompanies the usual shouting and muttering with expressive lifting of different sorts of little flags in their hands.  
Hange swears between clenched teeth against the stupid little flags—silly-looking effigies of serious trouble to come, no doubt.

The reporters, at least, show some purpose in sparing Hange the elbow-fight for the entrance, taking the nasty business onto themselves.

“Commander! Commander!” They cry— too many people, in too many different tones for Hange to bear them serious mind.

  
Finally, the daily miracle: the gate is closed, leaving the journalists, the curious, the protesters outside. Yet Hange walks on, swiftly, nearly running again.  
They only halt when they hear the heavy door shut behind them. Only then they take a moment, and let out a heavy sigh, dropping their weight against the solid presence of the door.

For months, Hange had tried to explain.  
Then they had been busy figuring things out, freeing Maria’s territory from the titans still trapped within it, and venturing in some first expedition outside the Walls.  
Shy, tender little things.

_Daring wet your feet in a sea whose end you cannot sea, huh?_

Hange scrolls their head to get rid of that invasive sentence.  
That was not the point. The point was that by the time the Survey Corps had come back—successful, proud, so many less deaths than usual on their records—the inner Walls had turned into pots with heavy lids, filled with water that was starting to boil, and not one goddamn way to stop them from doing so.

There was a world out there, much bigger than Hange had thought, much bigger than Hange would have dared dream of…  
And yet Hange had had to spent the past months shut in, damning the passage between one box to the other, with this unbearable feeling that no matter what they said, they were granted to upset someone.

Hange moves somewhat disheartedly now along the corridors of the administrative building.

People in Sina were more used to feeling comfortable, and smart, and confident about their good lives. A state of mind that had nothing to do with the terrifying uncertainty that opened up before them all.  
  
Still, it had to be Sina for they had to be close to the administrative centres to attend the countless meetings, if they wanted to avoid accusations of carelessness and disinterest towards the public opinion. Although that didn’t seem to free them from accusations of being the ones who moved the threads behind the curtains.

It had to be Orvud for at least the people there had grown to see them as saviours—following Rod Reiss’ business—, but as Hange’s hands move absentmindedly through the stash of paper, they miss the wider spaces of Rose or Maria. Miss the days on the field, working with Eren.

_Prepare. Prepare._ _We must prepare_.

Hange’s not the kind to ever resist temptation to dive head first into the unknown. But even they know…  
A world one whole century ahead of them, a world with burning memories of hatred, and missions of annihilation, is not the kind of foe you can face head first.

Then how is it that the others, the careful, wise ones, all behave like children? Whining, screaming, beating their fists and kicking the ground?!  


“You’re late.”   
Hange looks up. Darkened by the sun behind him, Levi is a tiny shadow equally comforting and menacing.   
“_Again,_” he adds.

“Please, Maria, not now—” Hange halts… Too late.

Levi gives them a long, blank stare.

“We-we haven’t started yet…”

He clicks his tongue, annoyed, “Some are even later than you,” he says, glancing at something down the corridor.  
Hange imitates him, and crosses eyes briefly with Historia, who’s busy biting her bottom lip while Zackly talks to her with a peremptory attitude.

Not a good sign.

“Have you been eating?” there’s a harsh judgment now in the undertones of Levi’s still majorly blank expression. “You’re pale.” 

Hange blinks, and scrolls the head, “Research.”

Levi glares. His lips turn into a thin line.   
_Research_.  
The stupid, magic word that justifies all things these days.  
He too misses the good parts of being out in the field. The sky, the wide space, the relative safety of it now that the titans are basically gone.  
But Levi’s eyes too have not redeemed themselves from the darkness that surrounds them.  
He clicks his tongue again as he walks past Hange, aiming for the meeting room, “Try not to sleep for the entire time.”

“Wanna take turns?” Hange’s joyful tone is only partially that of a joke.

He glares at them again, but without malice. An entirely different language, that Hange can grasp, and the complicity of it makes them smile—this time, not tiredly.  
But the smile quickly dies when Levi halts at the entrance of the room, and now there’s unequivocal disdain in his light eyes.

“Glasses…”  
  
Hange holds their breath. _What now_?  
  
“What the hell are those clowns doing in there?”

Hange peeks inside the room, over Levi's head.

A tiny, elderly woman, so lean it looks as if something has sucked her dry from all her liquids, glares.  
A thick, bolding man in his late forties proudly holds on to his suspenders, a little flag peeping from between his fingers. He turns around and produces an unnerving, triumphant smile.

A sort of chocked whistle leaves Hange’s throat.

_Fuck_.

***

Lina’s foot slides off a hedge, and she spasmodically grabs the rope that attaches her to Yör.  
“Stairs, huh?”

Calling them stairs was indeed an exaggeration, just like it was to assume it would only take one rope to secure their way in a difficult descent where the iceburst head-lights were the only things keeping them from making very easy—and possibly lethal—missteps.

“This’s gotta be _way_ older than a hundred years!” Taji’s almost crying out of excitement.

“What if there’s some kind of treasure down there?” Vince nearly screams in response.

Taji’s mind is crossed by a sudden fantasy featuring Commander’s Zoë's enthusiastic smile at hearing the news. Such enthusiasm that would definitely push them to take Taji in their arms, and…

“Heroes” she decides, “We’re gonna be fucking heroes!”

“Oh, for crying out loud!!!” Lina shouts from her spot in the line, “Are you all twelve?! Not even Nat says stuff like that.”

“Nat doesn’t say much stuff at all,” the other girl points out.

Taji frowns. “Are you still with us, lil’ Nat?”

No answer.

“_Nat!_”

“Over here!” An oddly hoarse voice shakes them where they stand. “I found something!”

That something is another, smaller opening. One they would have to crawl into, and that shines so bright with iceburst stone that it hurts their eyes to look straight into it.

Taji makes to say something, but is interrupted by a fit of cough.

Lina blinks a few times, and then quickly crosses her arms. “We’re _not_ splitting into groups!”

Yör shields his eyes with an arm, “That is… Shiny.” There's admiration, but also a bit of uneasiness in his voice.

Vince looks at the small boy in awe. “How did you find it?”

Nat points a thin arm at a sort of panel, “I was trying to clean it quickly to copy the symbols, and it just…”

“Alright!” Taji tries to reacquire composure. “I go first, then come Yör, Jin, and Vince, then lil' Nat, and then Lina.” She smirks at her, “So you can leg it quickly if you want.”

“I’m not a coward! I just don’t like how low we are.”

“Let’s try to reach an area where it’s safer to take samples,” Taji squints while peeking inside. “This looks… Clearer than usual. Might be even better than the normal stuff!” A tremendously mischievous smile shines on her face. “They might give us a holiday as a prize,” she adds, although, in all fairness, everyone in the team knows that’s _not_ what she’s thinking.  
And it shows.

Taji blushes, “Move it.”

__________

On their fours, they crawl, and crawl.

Vince swears, pausing a moment and covering up his eyes with one arm. “Is it just me or is this getting brighter?”

Taji coughs. Four pair of eyes show different signs of uneasiness—the last pair beingfixed on a notebook.  
At first, it was easy enough to ignore it. But now she’s been coughing for several minutes with little interruptions.

Lina peeks at her from the end of the line. It really doesn’t take a genius to see how their Operation Leader cares about these missions, but if no one else’s going to talk…  
  
“Taji…”

“I’m fine!” she cuts her short, but then coughs a little more. “Stupid dust from earlier.”

“Here,” Vince takes out a flask of water, “Let her come back here.”

“No, it’s—” she muffles another fit against her arm.

Yör places a reassuring hand on her shoulder, “It’s ok.” 

Taji swears under her breath, but detaches her rope to move towards the back of the line.

“It’s… Definitely getting brighter,” Jin says, massaging her eyelids.

Nat squints to write down on his notebook.

“Lina,” Vince throws a concerned glance at her while Taji drinks, “Why don’t you two…”

Taji punches him on the arm, “Don’t even think about it.”

Lina is perplexed. The olive-coloured skin of the Operation Leader glistens from a thin veil of sweat, but the air is cool. Almost cold.

Feeling observed, Taji looks at her, and Lina sees her eyes are reddened. “Your eyes…” she says, uneasy, “Do they… Tingle?”

Taji frowns. “I don’t know what you’re—”

  
Then Nat screams. “Something moved!” he cries.

They all protest as the ropes pull on them while Nat rolls from one side to the other, “Something-moved-something-moved-something—”

Taji coughs some more.

Vince swears, and grabs Taji’s arm. “That’s it. Let’s get out of here.”

She pushes against him, “There’s nothing—”

“You want a sample, I’ll take it!” Lina shouts, wielding a chisel and a phial.

“Lina, wait!” Taji begs, but Lina pushes Nat to the side and leans over his original spot.

Then Yör screams and they all halt in terror.

“He’s right!!!” he pulls on the rope, dragging all but Taji forward. Lina loses balance and falls down. “He’s right, there’s like a—” He tries to rush ahead, past that point.

  
“Wait! Wait!” Taji screams, trying to reach him, and widens up her eyes instinctively, and as she does so a bright light shoots through her head, and her screams fill the narrow corridor.

It takes the others a second to react. The entrance is quite far behind them, Yör’s pulling quite distracting, and in that indecision, they panic, and scream, and try to look around for answers.

Lina curls up on the floor, so terrified she can’t even scream. Her fingers wrap around the sample phial with so much strength it breaks, and as she opens up her eyes and sees the blood flowing from the wounds, her ears are filled by heightened screams…  
And then her body is drastically, violently, irreparably pushed forward across the burning light.

  
  


*** 

Making the basement revelations available to the public was definitely the right thing to do.  
_Definitely. _  
There was no other way to handle it, everyone could see it. Everyone agreed, the moment the mere temptation of trying to handle things themselves, and paternalistically protect the people from a difficult truth, had presented itself, they all knew that the right thing to do was telling them regardless.  
After all, they had a century of direct experience of what it really meant to embrace the alternative.

Hange had not really understood the way the previous governments had all given in to fear and selfishness. If the world was out there, and eager to kill them, to destroy them all, what good was it to just ignore it? How many other informations had been withdrawn? How many lives could have been saved, if only they had known all along everything there was to know?

  
But then they had seen how old Roy took the news.  
Roy was a good journalist. He was experienced, he was smart, he respected the people and had a good idea of their different reactions.  
So Hange had felt their heartbeat speed up when Roy had put down his teacup with shaking hands.  
The man hadn’t said those words exactly, but they were there anyway: ringing in their ears.

If this won’t end, if this can’t end while their race lives… What are they to do?

Is it even right for them to fight it?

Most people weren’t even keen on killing titans—not to annihilate them, least of all to study them. And yet titans were titans. They were monsters, with no sign of personality or intelligence. They were monsters who devoured humans without even really using them as nutrients.  
And they were outside. Humanity had a whole world to gain from vanquishing them.  
  
And probably, _humanity_ still did think this way.

Some people did see the irony in their fate—in having been “humanity’s titans” all along.  
Most didn’t.

And when Levi had stood up from the table and let his forehead against the window, Hange knew it was from the nausea of it all.  
  
“Glasses…” he had said, simply.  
  
But Hange had felt uneasiness, something close to fear in his tone, and as the crowd’s shouts approached, it didn’t take Hange long to figure out why Levi had grown suddenly so anxious.

The people wanted more explanations.  
And Hange tried to satisfy them.  
  
Then, Hange understood a bit better: explanations didn’t suffice for everyone.

The people wanted reasons. And then they wanted reasons and promises and solutions.  
They didn’t care about who tried their best. They cared that they would not get robbed of their life suddenly, without understanding why.

They cared to the point of listening even when what was being offered was no solution at all.

Hange cares for truth. Hange cares for the people, and their freewill, and keeping them alive. Not for control, not for politics, not for little flags, or devious hopes of salvation.

  
Inside the meeting room, Hange turns towards the door, and their eyes cross Zackly’s.  
He can feign indifference all he wants, but it is quite evident that, today, he too has something weighting on his mind.

_If you don’t do it, someone else will._

Hange looks at the old woman, a new entry to their Council, no doubt, and their finger ruin a corner of the first paper of their pile. 

Irena Gersten sits rigidly, but at ease. Her stern expression fixed simply somewhere before her. Hange’s got years of experience in reading blank, serious faces.  
Well, _one_ blank, serious face. Not necessarily enough to understand what is going through the old woman’s mind…  
Enough to perceive Levi’s mix of horror, repulsion, and hatred directed at the big man who won’t stop laughing loudly with his neighbours.  
But then Hange hears Levi click his tongue from his seat next to theirs.

“Sneaky old fucker…” He sounds almost… Envious.

They glance down at Levi, and then back to the door, where they see Pixis exchangewords with Zackly.

“At this rate, he’ll bury both you and me,” Levi says as Pixis leaves the room.

“You wanna transfer, I’ll write you a good reference letter,” Hange smirks. “_Very detailed_.”

They gasp, then chuckle as Levi kicks them in the shin from underneath the table.  
  
But they weren’t wrong about Levi’s attention being somewhat captured by the main source of noise in the room.

“Is that what you meant when you mentioned improving livestock policies?” Levi frowns as the man enthusiastically shakes hands with those around him. “Looks like we’ve done great.”

Hange throws him an amused glance.  
He doesn't reciprocate.

"Now, I take it that idiots can't resist giving money to religious nonsense," his brows furrow as he points at Gersten. "But that pig?"

Hange looks at him completely baffled, then lowers their tone. “Where have you lived for the past three months?!”

“_I_, huh?”

They sigh.

“All rise.”  
  
Hange's last attempt to warn Levi about Salvatus' growing carreer is covered by the sound of people standing from their seats to greet the Queen.  
_It doesn't matter. He'll see for himself soon enough.   
_As the Queen and General Zackly enter, Hange throws a last glance at the now closed door.

It’s not like Pixis to miss a meeting.

Hange frowns, pensive.

**Author's Note:**

> P.S, or, "What You’ve Probably Read a Bagillion Times on Hange’s Gender".
> 
> So, here Hange’s referred to as they/them. I assure you that in this fic Hange’s gender has the same impact that it has in the original work (i.e. none), so I see no reason to change this particular element about this character.  
Isayama’s stance on Hange seems to allow readers who see the character as belonging to any one gender to still be right, but as far as I am concerned, it seemed more fair to keep it blatantly neutral.


End file.
